Because of critical and worsening drought conditions in certain areas, such as the Pacific Northwest, there is an urgent need for an economical and practical means to irrigate trees, particularly fruit bearing trees, to prevent their destruction and the resulting great economic loss. To be practical, the tree irrigating or watering means must conserve the dwindling reserves of water in the drought areas and at the same time must be capable of supplying enough water to the trees at least to keep them alive until the end of the drought period.
The objective of this invention, simply stated, is to satisfy the above urgent need in terms of a simple, economical and practical water conserving irrigator for individual trees which has the capacity to supply significant amounts of water to trees in a controlled and efficient manner without wasting any water and by delivering water only to those parts of trees where watering is necessary.
Portable tree and plant watering devices, broadly speaking, are known in the prior art but no such known devices have proven adequate to satisfy the needs created by the present drought situation in terms of water conservation, practicality of manufacturing of the irrigation means, and delivering enough water to trees over a long enough period of time to save the trees and maintain their health. Some examples of the prior patented art are contained in U.S. Pat. Nos. 419,242; 584,886; 1,029,107; 2,105,800; 2,145,934; 2,784,528; 3,005,287 and 3,461,606.